Category: Uncategorized Page 8 of 22

Lecture- Interaction of Material and Light

In AnimSchool’s Material and Texturing class, Arvin Villapando, the instructor, discusses how material and light interact with each other in the software Substance Designer.

Looking for the best 3D Animation schools? For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com

Interviews with “Here’s The Plan” Animators (part 3, Francisco Anabalón)

Since its release in April last year, Here’s the Plan has received acclaim for its realistic portrayal of the hardships of relationships, as well as its bright and pleasing art style. This 18-minute “short” was animated by a hard-working team of 5 animators, many of whom are or were students here at AnimSchool. I had the great pleasure of interviewing them on their work on Here’s the Plan, and I’m excited to share what they had to say. Last, but not least, we have an interview with Francisco Anabalón, who is a current student at AnimSchool.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hi! I´m Francisco Anabalón, I´m a Digital Animator currently finishing the Animation Program at AnimSchool, from Santiago de Chile. Before enrolling in AnimSchool, I studied drawing at an art program of a local University and then Digital Animation, after that I worked 2 years as a freelance character animator and then I decided to study here at AnimSchool. Besides animation, I really like life drawing ( https://www.facebook.com/FranciscoAnabalonArt/) and play guitar!

How did you find out about “Here’s the Plan”, and what drove you to work on it?
Fernanda Frick and I were classmates during the first year of my studies in Digital Animation. She left the school, but we were still meeting at animation events. When she won funding for her film on the Chile´s National Council of Culture and Arts, I was working on commercials and tv series, but I wanted to work on something more challenging in artistic terms. I met her at an animation festival and likely she was looking for character animators at the time, so she agreed to work with me when I asked her.

What is your favorite aspect of the film?
I think the art direction and all the CG aesthetic achieved is really cool and original. I also like the camera work, the cinematography. In terms of animation, there are really good shots, I wish we had more time to do stronger character animation on the whole movie – I think that was the most difficult part to achieve with the funds and the time Fernanda had.

What were some of the hardships of working on a short film?
The most difficult part for me was the time we had to finish the shots. I really wanted to do the best animation I could, so at the beginning I did it as well as I could even knowing that, by taking longer, it meant I would have a lower wage at the end of the month (the Council of Culture and Arts pays by “animated second” – that isn’t much) but in the end, taking too long wasn´t possible because of the deadline. It was stressful for me on that aspect, probably because I hadn’t had a similar experience before.

Were there things you learned during your classes at AnimSchool that you applied to your animation?

I enrolled in AnimSchool after finishing “Here’s the Plan”, but I had two mates there that had done the Animation Program in AnimSchool when we were on the production (Maikoe Alaniz and María José Venegas). I was really impressed by their work and they recommend me the school, so I decided to study here. I wish I could take my shots back and do it them again with all that I´ve learned here. Many things that I thought I knew I realized I didn’t understand well until I saw the way my instructors approached them – for example, understanding how to depict proper weight to a bouncing ball through the highs and lows, or acting tips like avoiding generic breakdowns in your animation, body mechanics for something I didn’t have much practice with, a deeper thought of the subtext of my acting choices, etc. I also think I have a better workflow now; this isn´t a rule, but an instructor taught us how to start with a pass with keys on all controls and then to offset them in groups when you pass to spline, and that helped me a lot to keep control on the movements until the polish. I think all these things would’ve helped me when I was animating on Here’s the Plan.

I´ve had a really good experience studying at AnimSchool, we have all these great industry pro instructors who critique your work for the whole course, and you learn all the principles, tips and workflow from them on the lectures. Also, the student community is very friendly and supporting, following the progress of your classmates it´s super motivating!

What is a shot you worked on that you’re particularly proud of? What was effective about it?

The shots that are on my demo reel are the ones I like the most ( https://vimeo.com/61929026 ) the style that Fernanda wanted was really subtle (not much stretch and squash, overlap…) but I think on their simplicity they communicate well the intentions of the characters.

Tell us about your workflow for animating a new shot. (Vid ref or drawings, how much goes into your blocking pass, whether you start in spline right away, use of tools/plug-ins, how you polish, how you implement director feedback)

Fernanda did this video with a shot of mine that shows my workflow: ( https://vimeo.com/254337202 ) I also used video reference on this and on most of the most important shots. I started working in stepped until I finished the breakdowns, but then I realized that working directly on spline was quicker, so I ended up doing just the main poses in stepped and then passed to spline right away. One important thing on my workflow was to be careful of keying the important poses and have everything in order before showing it, because Fernanda wasn´t approving everything at the first try (this may seem obvious for people working on big productions, but the commercials and tv series that I worked on tended to had few changes). Fernanda and Maikoe taught me how to used “Tween Machine” and “Arc Tracker”, I showed my animations and asked my doubts to both of them while I worked because they knew a lot more than me, they were really generous with their feedback and that was really useful to improve my workflow and the animation.

What advice do you have for students/grads looking to work on short films or freelance projects?

I think it is really good to do these kinds of projects to improve your portfolio and gain experience, I learnt a lot and met awesome people. It was also really cool seeing the project go so well. If you have the chance, it could be a really enriching experience! I believe is very important to go to festivals or animation events because they are great opportunities to network in person. Deciding to work with someone has a lot to do with knowing him or hearing of him- seeing an email with a good demo reel isn’t a guarantee that you are someone that can be trusted, and people consider people that are present for them to recommend or hire. Besides, it’s really fun! I love those events, I go to all I can.

Lastly, you said that you worked on TV shows and commercials before working on Here’s the Plan. What are some differences between working for TV and working for a short film? And, what were the pros and cons of both for you?

I think tv series look for a medium quality animation that you can create as fast as you can- there is no time to do many explorations. It is good for practicing animation principles, and generally are large projects so it is more stable than commercials. For me the cons is that you tend to win more if you are faster, not necessarily if you achieve better quality.

Commercials are generally better paid than TV series, but they are unstable – many animators learn other things to stay on one place (like rigging, modeling..), Also, I think it is difficult to learn acting doing them because you are not telling a story in a strict sense.

In my experience with Here’s the Plan, I had the chance to explore acting more in depth than in my previous jobs. It was also very different to work for the vision of Fernanda. Her short film was so important to her and she had an artistic vision, she wanted to tell something with it, and sometimes I had to re-do something because “that wasn’t the kind of relationship the couple had,” for example. That is really cool and it’s the kind of artistic task that I want to work on. The cons in this case was that there were no much money to do it, I couldn´t work permanently on a job like that. I think working on bigger projects with that standard would be really cool, I hope I´ll be able to do that with what I´ve been learning with AnimSchool.

Thank you so much, Francisco!

You can check out more of Francisco’s work here.

Looking for the best 3D Animation schools? For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com

Interviews with “Here’s the Plan” Animators (part 2, Maikoe Alaniz)

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hey! My name’s Maikoe. I’m a 25 year old animator from Santiago, Chile. Currently living in Santiago as well. My background in animation isn’t really that vast. My first 3D experience was when I started with AnimSchool and prior to that I had gone to university for “animation generalist” classes which mostly involved 2D work, but nothing too far into character animation.

My hobbies are pretty related to animation I guess, I’m big on video-games and I enjoy cooking a lot. I would give my life to defend my cats, but who wouldn’t, really?

How did you find out about “Here’s the Plan”, and what drove you to work on it?

I have a little history with Fernanda Frick, the film’s director. She used to be one year up in the first university I attended and she dropped out to join another online animation school. Back when she did this, I was terrified to go down that same path so I think around 3 years after knowing about her I contacted her for advice on doing the same sort of move, so we’ve been in contact throughout the years. When I graduated AnimSchool, I imagine she found out about it through Facebook or acquaintances and contacted me about her upcoming project. Around 5 months after graduating (And going on a well deserved vacation!) I joined the animation team.

What is your favorite aspect of the film?

I really like a couple of shots that I have on my reel, which are shots we had a lot of time to think about and plan so that they would be really meaty. In general, we didn’t have much time to really get too thorough but I think we managed to nail a lot of very important moments that I enjoy watching to this day. I personally like mechanics shots a lot more, so the fact that one of the shots is a mechanics shot that manages to tell a lot through body movement is really cool to me. Looking back, I’m really surprised I managed some of those shots, actually. I was extremely inexperienced professionally, but I think I managed to translate my AnimSchool experience into the office well with time.

The film took 2 years to complete; how long did you personally work on it for?

Animation for the film lasted around 8 months if I’m not mistaken, and I worked there for the entire duration. I’m positive Fernanda animated shots herself after we were done with our part of the animation, but I’m not certain as to when or for how long that went on.

What were some of the hardships of working on a short film?

Without trying to get too personal, I was going through some very hard times nearing the end of production that were very similar to the film’s main plot. It was a very stressful time for me emotionally so that was an unexpected hardship and something I didn’t thought I’d have to deal with.

For me in general everything was also very new. Stuff like dealing with an office schedule or commuting to work were all things that I hadn’t experienced before. I’d say it was all very enjoyable but of course it was hard adjusting at the beginning.

What is a shot you worked on that you’re particularly proud of? What was effective about it?

The shot I was talking about before, when Kat removes her shoes and sort of charges past Doug was really effective in setting up a change of emotion. Up until that part of the film, we haven’t seen her explore that part of her emotional spectrum and I feel like we were very successful in also telling a story through her body posture and movements without having to put any dialogue or expressions in (“show, don’t tell”!). I’m very happy with that shot and years later it’s still a very central part of my reel. This past CTN, I got a lot of compliments on it for being a very simple shot (We really didn’t have a lot of time to do any shot too in-depth) that was very effective in telling what had to be told. It’s a very sort of in-character shot and I like that how that turned out.

(I’m talking about the shots at 14:31)

Were there things you learned during your classes at AnimSchool that you applied to your animation?

Because I was new to animation, AnimSchool quite literally provided me with everything I needed to know to tackle this job. Outside of animation principles, I focused a lot during AnimSchool to maintain the best possible work ethic and I got noticed by that a lot by the instructors. I think that particular skill carried over really nicely to a work environment, and the fact that it got highlighted during AnimSchool really pushed me to take it as something I do on purpose and not something that I take for granted. I always try to be on top of my game and be really active during production work, even if I’m doing something I’m not particularly comfortable with or something I haven’t done before. I’ll always try to push really hard and keep asking questions and maintain a generally high participation.

Tell us about your workflow for animating a new shot.

I owe my workflow to my course 1 and 2 instructor Matt Doble, really. If I’m doing something for myself/my reel (So no time constraints) I’ll usually:

– Research first: Youtube, movies, shows, acting, pictures, etc.

– After I’ve found what I want I’ll generally try to shoot reference or grab reference from my research if it was deep/good enough. I generally skip drawings/thumbnails because I don’t trust myself with a pencil, honestly.

– I usually do 3-4 passes of blocking: Storytelling poses where I’ll just try to stop as soon as the whole intention of the shot is in the poses. I’ll work over these poses to make them as strong as possible and transition over to a second pass of blocking where I’ll try to have all the poses needed to make every action and beat work. My third pass of blocking I’ll bring the face/fingers/details in so that the entire shot can be read as a blocking, usually in 3s and 2s. The fourth pass of blocking I’ll try my best to avoid myself any pains in splining. I’ll go over my curves and I’ll try to look for opportunities where I can move certain actions to 1s, just so that I have to work the splines as little as possible. Doing quick spline-checks where you move the shot to splines, watch it then go back to blocking to solve issues also works wonders for me.

– for Splining/Polishing I’ll usually try to stay as little as possible in here solving issues and try to spend as much time as possible pushing things that I didn’t notice before. For me personally a successful shot already is when I enter splining and there’s little to no fixing to do, so that I can focus in polishing and making the shot work better in any way I can.

“Get rejected a lot. I personally apply and get rejected by Blizzard and Riot Games every 6-7 months because, if I eventually get in, I’ll have all this path behind me to look back on and I won’t take my achievements for granted.”

What advice do you have for students/grads looking to work on short films or freelance projects?

Honestly, there’s so much work to be done that you should be applying for anything you feel like you’d enjoy. I personally didn’t really believe in myself, but got told a lot by people that have seniority over me by a lot that I was good. Listen to other people and follow their advice. Get rejected a lot. Getting rejected sort of sucks if you build hype around getting hired somewhere you want, but if you keep getting rejected you sort of get used to it and start opening different routes where you consider things you might not have before that you might end up enjoying a lot. I personally apply and get rejected by Blizzard and Riot Games every 6-7 months because, if I eventually get in, I’ll have all this path behind me to look back on and I won’t take my achievements for granted.

Also, don’t destroy yourself with workload/practice. It’s fine to want to be the best and get hired by a huge studio, but also take your health into consideration. You’re not gonna be any good to a studio if you overwork yourself to hell and back. After all, it’s a job in the entertainment industry! You gotta stay entertained yourself and enjoy it to make it work.

Thank you so much, Maikoe!

You can check out more of Maikoe’s work here.

Looking for the best 3D Animation schools? For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com

Interviews with “Here’s the Plan” Animators (part 1, Diego Oliva)

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Diego, I’m from Chile. I started learning animation when I studied at University (I graduated in 2017) but I didn’t learn as much character animation as I wanted to, so I entered AnimSchool and I’m a current student now. Not much professional background except for a few freelance jobs here and there.

How did you find out about “Here’s the Plan”, and what drove you to work on it?

When I was working on my thesis, I was worried because after all the years studying at University, I didn’t learn exactly what I wanted to, which was character animation. So, I tried to find other ways to learn at that time and luckily I heard there was a short film project being made and they were looking for animators. I sent a reel with the few things I had and got an answer saying that I had the job as junior animator. Fernanda (the director) helped me a lot by teaching me about the details of animation.

What is your favorite aspect of the film? (Story, visuals, specific shots, etc.)

My favourite aspect of the film might be the story. I like that it feels personal, and I like how is being told – it could have had the usual kind of couple fight, where they end up divorced or with a lot of drama, but that’s not the story that the director wanted to tell, and I admire that.

What were some of the hardships of working on a short film?

There are unexpected technical errors that might happen, because it’s a small production and there is a lot to do, but you’re not always sure about how to do it. For example, animating certain props that could need some vfx but you have to come up with a faster and cheaper way (belts, clothes, for example). We worked those problems as a team with the final decision made by the director. I remember that there was a sequence where “Kat” had to take her jacket off, and at the beginning she was going to make that action all in one shot – the problem was that the rig didn’t have any controls for that, and the jacket wasn’t exactly model for that kind of motion, so there was two options: try to figure out a vfx solution with dynamics and all or make a separate rig and animate it frame by frame trying to make it look like is clothing and that the character is moving it. In the end, Fernanda separated the shot into two, one when “Kat” starts taking it off and the next one when she is throwing it away. We never see how she takes it off but the story is told the same way, or maybe better.

What is a shot you worked on that you’re particularly proud of? What was effective about it?

Hmmm, I think it could be nearly at the end of the film, when after Kat breaks down the wall, she and Doug apologize to each other. It was one of the few acting shots I had, (mostly I was asked to animate the close ups of the hands or props etc), and I really liked how it turned out, mostly because I first thought that I couldn’t do it, hahaha. When I watch it, I do feel the connection between those two. I think what really helped was the director’s feedback – she knew exactly what she wanted to tell and how. Because we didn’t have much time to finish the animation, there was no time to take any reference, so it ended up being mostly intuition. (I’m talking about the shots from 16:04 to 16:19)

Were there things you learned during your classes at AnimSchool that you think may have been helpful in hindsight?

I wish I knew more about body mechanics at that time; I think I would have worked way faster and better with the knowledge I get from AnimSchool and the instructors. I do feel that my animations don’t look the same as they did before, even though it hasn’t been so long since I started AnimSchool. I feel that I’ve been learning a lot. I find really cool how not only the instructors but also the students are so willing to help each other – it’s a great community.

Tell us about your workflow for animating a new shot.

Well, I first start with the reference if needed, don’t do much drawing unless a movement is too cartoony for real life reference. I sketch out some key poses I like in my sketchbook and start the blocking pass. I always tried to put as much in the blocking as I can and not get impatient and jump into spline (I don’t always succeed… and then end up saying, oh man, I should have planned that in blocking). I do use tools and plugins – my favourite so far is “Atools”, it has saved my butt too many times already. When getting feedback, I like to write them down on paper, kinda helps me to remember easier, and I draw some thumbnails of what I need to change.

What advice do you have for students/grads looking to work on short films or freelance projects?

Maybe because normally short films are more independent projects, they tend to be more artistic or have a really different direction that a studio is not always allowed so it’s a fun experience (but also a messy one). Prepare for many mistakes, but you will learn a lot from them, and be open to sharing ideas, not only in animation but maybe in other areas that might help the production. Because it’s such a small team working on a really specific project, you end up caring about it more than just another job – you are all in the same boat and want it to work!!

Thank you so much, Diego!

You can check out more of Diego’s work here.

Looking for the best 3D Animation schools? For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com

Loosening Up Animation With Overlap in the Body

It’s easy to fall into the trap of making your animation look too stiff, especially when using poses directly from a video reference. One way to counter this is to exaggerate the drag and overlap of the main body controls – the hips, the chest, and the head. In a scene where the hips lead, the chest would follow the hips, and the head would follow the chest, and you can play around with the overlaps to achieve a more organic look. In this clip, instructor Luke Randall does a live Maya demonstration in student Saul Latorre’s shot, helping him get a more organic and springy feel in a portion of his animation by working with the translations of the main body control, the chest, and the head. Luke is an animator at Dreamworks, and is an instructor for Body Acting, our fourth course in 3D character animation.

For more information about AnimSchool and our online animation programs, visit us at www.animschool.com

Open House/Q&A at AnimSchool! Come See What it’s Like

Are you thinking about learning 3D animation or characters modeling?
If you are considering applying to be a student at AnimSchool: come to our free public open house this Friday 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern time.

Come and get a sneak peek of the new student pages, all the resources and what it’s like to be a student here at the school.

There will be a short presentation of our school and site and we will take your questions live.
Bonus! We will have several current AnimSchool students and instructors there to answer your questions as well.

To register for this live event and get more info, click here.

This event is expected to fill up, so register now to attend live, or receive the recording link afterwards.

To find out when this is in your timezone, change your timezone here: http://www.animschool.com/TimeZoneSelection.aspx

If you set it correctly, go here to see the event:
http://www.animschool.com/AcademicCalendar.aspx

You can have your webcam/mic ready OR if you don’t have one, you can still listen and chat with us.

AnimSchool: makers of the famous Malcolm rig and AnimSchool Picker used by tens of thousands around the world! We are known for our high quality, expressive rigs and student achievement.

Q&A Session – Manuel Bover & Jarrod Showers

In AnimSchool’s Q&A Session, instructors Manuel Bover and Jarrod Showers answer questions from our students about the industry.

Come join us at www.animschool.com

New AnimSchool Game Character: Riker

We are pleased to present AnimSchool’s newest game character, Riker!
Students in our upper game animation classes can learn using Riker.

Riker is made using an all new rig initiative – we’ve taken the extreme facial expressiveness AnimSchool is known for and brought it to the game rig world! Riker has a wide range of expressions not usually seen in games.

Riker was designed by artist Wesley Tippetts and modeled by Paul Bellozas and Dave Gallagher. Texturing by Paul Bellozas.

Come join our gaming animation classes to learn skills with AnimSchool rigs!